Balance Continuity and Change

Precisely because change is a constant, the foundations have to be extra strong.

The more an institution is organized to be a change leader, the more it will need to establish continuity internally and externally, the more it will need to balance rapid change and continuity.

One way is to make partnership in change the basis of continuing relationships. Balancing change and continuity requires continuous work on information. Nothing disrupts continuity and corrupts relationships more than poor or unreliable information. It has to become routine for any enterprise to ask at any change, even the most minor one: “Who needs to be informed of this?” And this will become more and more important as more enterprises come to rely on people working together without actually working together—that is, on people using the new technologies of information. Above all, there is need for continuity in respect to the fundamentals of the enterprise: its mission, its values, its definition of performance and results.

Finally, the balance between change and continuity has to be built into compensation, recognition, and rewards. We will have to learn, similarly, that an organization will have to reward continuity—for instance, by considering people who deliver continuing improvement to be as valuable to the organization, and as deserving of recognition and reward, as the genuine innovator.

Action point: When you make a decision or a change, ask yourself, “Who needs to be informed of this?”

Management Challenges for the 21st Century

Peter Drucker